Self critical, perfectionist 7 year old ds - how to boost confidence?

[FooFooTheSnoo]

How do you do this? he has lately been describing himslef as 'rubbish' at things - he has very little tolerance for his own mistakes. Games are difficult atm as he hates losing - then gets in a bad mood and describes himself as 'stupid and no good at things'. He has been making comics with friends but told me last night he is taking a back seat as he thinks 'he'll mess it up and ruin it'.

He is a very sensitive and quite emotional boy. All his teachers describe him as extremely bright - he's in the top groups for most things. Popular - lots of friends. He's always been a bit shy with adults but not really with other children. We give him loads of positive attention and tell him how good he is at things - and try to encourage him at things he finds harder. But this habit of beating himself up is really upsetting.

Is this just a phase?

[FooFooTheSnoo]

bump

[FooFooTheSnoo]

bumping ths again......hoping someone has some wise words for me.

[Dottydot]

Hmm. We've got one that's very like this. One thing that works re: winning/losing at games, is to play games where you only win by chance - snakes and ladders/tummy ache - anything where the roll of a dice means you win or lose. Then go over and over the concept of luck -that it doesn't matter how good or bad you are at the game, it's luck whether you win or lose. This has helped ds1 to cope with losing!

Ds1 was also given a chess set this Christmas - I thought he was way too young for it (he's just 6) but has taken to it amazingly and loves figuring out what moves will mean what - I'm helping him to think 2 or 3 moves ahead and what the consequences will be. It might be that your ds likes something like this?

[FooFooTheSnoo]

Thanks Dotty. He does play chess with dp and seems to handle that better than many other games.

I worry that he loses heart quickly when the going gets difficult.

[flamingtoaster]

Perfectionism is often found in the very bright/gifted, and it causes the child a lot of angst. I agree that lots of praise is important. Also the very bright child often rejects his efforts because they are not as good as an older sibling, or as good as an adult. We used to show our DD drawings etc. done by DS at the same age to show that she was actually doing as well as him at that age (unfortunately we didn't have that mechanism when DS went through the same thing previously!). It's also important that if something goes wrong for you you point it out so that he knows that even adults don't do everything perfectly all the time. Talking to him about how everybody needs a chance to practice, learn and grow in skill won't produce immediate results but might, over time, allow him to be less hard on himself. Point out that even the best footballers miss penalties, etc. - and that if everyone on the football pitch always scored from every attempted goal the game wouldn't be as exciting. Maybe you could all try some new skill together so he could see that even adults don't do things perfectly straight off.

I hope you can find something which helps him to be happier.

[FooFooTheSnoo]

Flamingtoaster that's a great idea about trying to learn something new together.

He's generally a happy chap - what worries me is that I sailed through school without really having to try at all and as a result I am not much of a trier. If something is hard I tend to walk away from it and it's not a good personality trait to have.

I also am a perfectionist....it's the same old same old about not wanting to saddle your children with the things you have had to deal with in life!

[SueW]

I think constructive criticism is better than praise tbh.

[mummymagic]

Am with flamingtoaster, you need to show him that it's ok to make mistakes and that's how you learn. So doing something together and sharing how you don't do it perfectly first time but can enjoy the process, is a good idea.

Think the cliche is that children fall down 240 times before they learn to walk (or something ).

[Dottydot]

Bribery has also worked with ds1. Turns out he's amazing with numbers and maths but not as good as his peers in reading/writing. So reading homework has always been a struggle as he'd rather not read at all than try and get it wrong. So the deal now is if he reads every night (a) it doesn't matter if he gets words wrong (he was genuinely surprised at this when we told him!) and (b) he gets a Kinder egg on a Friday as a reward! His reading's improving and he's not as afraid to spell stuff out and have a go at words.